A Vindication of the Rights of Frankenstein's Creatures by Niall Boyce

I was one of the
last. When the rebellion began, many fled the cities, thinking that in the
countryside it would be possible to stay safe until the human regiments of the
British army regained control. I had joined the refugees and hidden in an
abandoned house some miles out of town. However, we were soon discovered and
overrun by the creatures. I had barely escaped, and, after several days wandering
miserably with no food or shelter, decided to return to take my chances in
London. This was territory that I knew; and, if I was careful to conceal myself
by day and forage by night, I might be safer in the back streets of the city
than in the open air.

London, however, had changed beyond
recognition in the few months that I had been away. Entering the city, I found
the streets were illuminated so brightly that my eyes ached; whole streets had
been demolished, and vast new buildings of concrete, metal, and glass had been
erected in their place. The creatures walked openly; not the stooped,
deferential scurrying that had characterised them when they were our
servants—our property, I should say. I, like most others, had seen them simply
as machines: machines of flesh and bone, machines made in the shape of man, but
machines nevertheless.

The creatures had come into existence in the
final years of the previous century. Reports had come from the continent of a
remarkable feat of engineering carried out by two Swiss scientists, Victor
Frankenstein and Henry Clerval, based at the University of Ingolstadt. Although
they were young men at the time—barely in their twenties, as I recall—they had
managed to build, from amputated limbs and parts of human corpses, a creature
that, in every respect but one, was a living being. By “in every respect but
one”, I mean that the creature was not capable of reproduction—or so it was
thought. Human beings never considered that, with the arrival of a new form of
life, they might have to broaden their definition of reproduction.

Through an adjustment made to the frontal
lobes of the brain prior to reanimation, Frankenstein and Clerval had been able
to instil complete obedience in this creature: it could understand and carry
out orders, and showed some rudimentary signs of reason. Yet it had no will of
its own. Very soon, the dead of the hospitals, poor houses, and gibbets across
Europe were being requisitioned and refashioned for use in households,
factories, and even armies. There were dark rumours of how some of the parts
were sourced—accounts, too, of flawed creatures that had turned on their
makers. Few believed them.

The problem with the creatures manifested
itself first as a barely perceptible truculence: a touch of reluctance carrying
out orders, a muttered word in passing. Then came the newspaper stories of
runaways, of the creatures organising themselves into gangs roaming the
countryside, robbing coaches and setting upon travellers. There were accounts
of horses being taken, slaughtered, and modified to produce fast, powerful,
tireless creatures that could run down any rider. Anonymous pamphlets claiming
to be written by the creatures began to appear: calls to unite and claim what
was rightfully theirs. The Frankenstein-Clerval company naturally denied these
reports, although some newspapers stated that those at the top were beginning
to wonder if the human brain might not be more adaptable than had originally
been thought. It was, in retrospect, reckless of the company to continue using
creatures in its factories to manufacture more of their kind. For when the
creatures rebelled—a single, convulsive action that took place simultaneously
across the whole world—they were careful to keep their captives intact for
their own use. If this was not possible, the creatures would make sure their victims’
brains, at least, were undamaged.

As I walked through London on the night I
returned, I saw that the creatures had made it completely their own: they had not
just rebuilt the physical structure, but also reinvented its customs. I kept to
the few shadows that remained, my scarf wrapped tightly around my face. The
creatures walked proudly and purposefully; they greeted each other with great
bellows of delight. Carriages rattled along the streets, driven faster than any
human being would have dared, passing each other by a hair’s breadth, but
always under complete control. I even saw families of creatures: two or more adults,
and a group of smaller beings, reconstituted from parts of children, dressed in
their best clothes and out for a stroll as if it were a pleasant Sunday
afternoon rather than the middle of the night.

I walked as far as St Giles. If the rookeries
still stood, they would afford some protection. I was in luck: the creatures’ clearances
had not yet reached that part of town, where the buildings were stacked
haphazardly together, roofs and walls collapsing into one another. Deeper and
deeper into the labyrinth I went, until, off a small courtyard and up a narrow staircase,
I found a room that might suit my purpose. I risked striking a match and found
the occupants had long gone, leaving behind them a filthy mattress and a few
sticks of firewood. There was no door, and I observed some marks around the
frame, as if bloodied fingers had grasped at it in an attempt to avoid being
dragged out. Only six months ago I would not have dared to venture into this
part of town. Now I settled down with relief: for one night, I had found
sanctuary.

I was woken by the sound of something
brushing against the floorboards. I sat up with a start: it was pitch-dark, and
I had no idea if I had only been asleep for a few hours, or a full day. My head
hurt, and my throat was desperately dry. I listened—there it was—a snuffling,
wheezing noise, and the sound of heavy cloth dragging on wood. Gradually, my
eyes adapted to the darkness, and I could make out, in the patch of grey that
signified the doorway, a dark, amorphous thing, crawling along the floor. Every
few paces it stopped, turned a few degrees—correcting its course—and advanced,
head to the ground, sniffing me out.

This was, I realised, one of the hybrids the
creatures had built: a fellow refugee in the country had told me of them. They
were made from different types of animal, and set loose at night to find any
human beings that remained alive. I leaned back on the mattress and tried to
remain as still as possible, in the hope that the thing would take me for dead
and move on. I dared not look up, but I heard the scraping and the snuffling
getting louder as it approached. Suddenly it fell silent. I lay there for as
long as I could bear it: then slowly, ever so slowly, I raised my head to look.

The creature was right at the foot of the
mattress. A gnarled claw that resembled
an immense spider extended from the sleeve of its robe, and closed around my
ankle. I screamed and twisted, but it dug in deeper until it drew blood. It put
its head back and screeched loudly, with a sound like a fox’s cry. I heard
footsteps thundering into the courtyard outside, then up the stairs and into
the room.

*

“You must
understand,” said the creature, “that I bear you no ill will.”

It pulled up a rickety stool and sat at the
end of my bed.

“I am sorry about the conditions here,” it
continued. “We have a programme to rebuild our hospitals, but it has been
difficult to implement because they have been in constant use ever since the
revolution. You are the last patient to experience the old system.”

“A patient?” I exclaimed. “I thought I was a
prisoner.”

The creature leaned forward and laid its hand
on my shoulder. Its yellow eyes glistened with something like compassion.

“A prisoner? Oh no, you are not a captive.
You are a poor, fragile thing in need of our help.”

I shrugged the creature off, and drew back.

“What
sort of help?” I asked. “Am I to be butchered to provide parts for more of your
kind?”

“You are sick,” said the creature, shaking
its head, “and must be made well.”

I lunged at it, and clasped my hand around
its throat. The skin was cold and slippery. It swatted me off and pinioned my arms
to my sides.

“You are agitated,” it said. “That is
natural. It is a symptom of your sickness.”

It pressed me gently but forcefully back onto
the bed.

“You are afraid, I know. I, too, was afraid.
But when the procedure is complete, there will be no more fear. You will be
reborn.”

“I’d rather die.”

The creature smiled, revealing a row of sharp
metal teeth.

“Now, now,” it chided. “You know that isn’t
true.”

It left me, lumbered over to the door of my room,
and rapped twice. One of my guards unlocked the door and entered carrying a
small folding table, a ream of paper, a pen, and a bottle of ink.

“Some like to write down their story,” said
the creature. “The tale of how their first life ended, and their second life
began. It helps them to—as it were—put
away childish things.”

I turned my face to the wall.

*

They came for me in
the early hours. I kicked, and lashed out, and cursed, but they held me fast
and carried me along the dilapidated hospital corridor and up the stairs to the
operating theatre. I caught glimpses of my audience, sitting neatly in rows: studious-looking
creatures, some taking notes, waiting for the procedure to begin. My head was
forced down onto a stone block, and the excited hubbub died down into a deathly
silence.

“You will note,” said a rasping voice I
recognised as that of the creature that had spoken to me in my room the
previous night, “the sharpness of the blade. This is essential. Early members
of our species, constructed through the Frankenstein-Clerval method, were often
prepared clumsily. The sawing motion necessary with the old equipment was both
inhumane and inefficient. It damaged the delicate nerve tissue. However, this
refinement means that the patient is in prime condition for the rest of the
operation. With one strong, swift motion—”

*

I woke in my bed. It
was day: the windows had been opened, allowing fresh air and sunlight in. The
whole room smelled of carbolic.

“Careful,” said the voice of my doctor. “The
stitches will still feel tight. And the bandages are not yet ready to come off.
We needed to transfuse a great deal of blood.”

I heard a low grunt like an animal in pain,
and realised that I was making it.

“Ah, your speech. Yes, that has been
affected, but it is nothing to worry about. We discovered a growth on your
tongue. We have replaced it as part of the procedure, but it will take some
getting used to. What’s that? Oh yes, of course.”

I heard the table being drawn closer to my
bedside: strong hands propped me up, and placed paper, pen, and a board to rest
on in front of me.

“I shall be most interested to read it,” my
doctor said.

I picked up the pen; the nib was already
black with ink. Clumsily, I gripped it in my hand, pressed it to the page, and
began to write.

Niall Boyce has written short stories
forDoctor Who and Bernice
Summerfield, and articles on subjects such as Outsider Art and
alien abduction. His first novel, Veronica Britton:
Chronic Detective is
out in November from Proxima Books. His work is available at http://bit.ly/npboyce, and
he is on Twitter as @NPBoyce_Writer.

Cliff Chapman grew up on the Isle of Man, where
he did lots of theatrical things before tunnelling out under cover of darkness
to London, to train at The Actor Works. He also occasionally directs –
including audio books for Fantom Audio. He is single and would like to meet a
girl who enjoys long walks, dinner, cinema, and debating whether the Jon
Pertwee era of Doctor Who is set in the 1970s or 1980s.

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